AUSTIN — The Texas Supreme Court heard oral arguments Wednesday in a case that seeks to ban Houston from using taxpayer dollars to pay for same-sex couples' benefits for its city employees.

"I'm floored," Plano attorney Mark Phariss said. "It really is unbelievable that full marriage equality is again being challenged in Texas."

Phariss and his husband, Vic Holmes, were two of the plaintiffs in a lawsuit against Gov. Greg Abbott that fought the state's constitutional ban on same-sex marriage. The couple, who have been together for 20 years and will celebrate their second wedding anniversary in November, filed a brief opposing the Houston lawsuit with the other two plaintiffs from their case.

"What is being litigated is whether Texas can impose second-class status on our marriage and the marriages of thousands of other LGBT Texans," Phariss said in a prepared statement accompanying the brief.

The plaintiffs in the Houston case, Jack Pidgeon and Larry Hicks, sued Mayor Sylvester Turner as Houston taxpayers, alleging that the nationwide right for same-sex couples to marry doesn't extend to spousal benefits.

"No city employee — whether heterosexual or homosexual — has a 'fundamental right' to receive employee benefits for his or her spouse," the plaintiffs stated in their lawsuit. "It is perfectly constitutional for the government to offer benefits or subsidies to some married couples while withholding those benefits from others."

The difference between the fundamental right to marry and the right to benefits was the focus of Pidgeon and Hicks' legal team Wednesday. The U.S. Supreme Court ruled in 2015 that same-sex marriage was legal nationwide in the landmark case Obergefell vs. Hodges.

"The right to marry is fundamental, the right to have it recognized is fundamental, the right to spousal benefits is not," Jonathan Mitchell, a California-based attorney who represented the plaintiffs, said during oral arguments.

Attorneys for the city of Houston argued that it was not an issue of whether benefits are a fundamental right, but one of equal treatment.

"If you extend benefits to opposite-sex couples, you have to extend it so same-sex couples," said Douglas Alexander, an Austin-based attorney who represented the city of Houston. "Under Obergefell, there is a fundamental right that couples be treated equally."

Attorneys for Texas Values, which helps represent the plaintiffs, compared the case to that of Hobby Lobby, which successfully petitioned to opt out of reproductive portions of Obamacare for religious reasons.

"There is no ruling from the high court that taxpayers must subsidize benefits requests from any two persons," Jonathan Saenz, president of Texas Values and part of the plaintiffs' legal team, said in a prepared statement. During the hearing, lawyers called their clients "conscientious objectors" who are being forced into conduct that violates their religious beliefs.

Although the Texas Supreme Court's decision affects only city employees in Houston, the precedent could have widespread implications for Obergefell's reach.

"I could be kicked off his health care plan and then would be uninsured," said Phariss, whose husband is a professor at the University of North Texas. The enrollment period at Phariss' company has passed, and with the uncertainty of Obamacare's future, he worries he could be uninsured for an extended period.

During the oral arguments, justices questioned whether it was local or state governments that have the jurisdiction to decide who gets benefits and if the rule should apply retroactively to gay couples who married before the Obergefell ruling.

Oral arguments are used as a question-and-answer hearing for justices to get details of the case, with each legal team given 20 minutes to present. The arguments are not designed to give a clear signal as to what the Supreme Court will decide, and justices can give their decision and written opinion a year after the hearing, sometimes sooner.

"It's hard to know what we see at oral arguments," said Jason Steed, a Dallas-based attorney who filed the brief on behalf of Phariss and Holmes. "They usually ask hard questions of both sides and play devil's advocate."

The plaintiffs and their attorneys have been trying for years to get the case in front of the justices. Pidgeon and Hicks originally sued the city's first openly gay mayor, Annise Parker, in 2013. Jared Woodfill, part of the plaintiffs' legal team, called Parker's actions "illegal" and part of her "liberal social agenda" in a news conference following Wednesday's hearing.

Pidgeon and Hicks asked the justices to reconsider and filed a petition to rehear their motion last September. The case gained traction in October after Abbott, Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick and Attorney General Ken Paxton penned a "friend of the court" brief that dozens of GOP lawmakers supported.

"[The U.S. Supreme Court's] judgment does not include a command that public employers like the city of Houston take steps beyond recognizing same-sex marriage," Abbott, Patrick and Paxton said in their brief.

Phariss isn't certain how the court will rule, saying there's a disconnect between Texans' values and the values elected officials like Abbott, Patrick and Paxton are pursuing.

"I'm optimistic, but I've been around enough that you never know," he said. "The Texans that we know, their hearts are as big as Texas, and they don't support blatant discrimination."

Progress Texas, a self-described progressive public relations firm based in Austin, echoed Phariss' comments in a news release.

"Gov. Greg Abbott, Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick, and Attorney General Ken Paxton are proving yet again how ridiculously out of touch they are with real Texas values," the release said. "Not only are Texas Republicans wasting taxpayer dollars on a backwards crusade against loving couples and families, but they're idiotically challenging a case settled by the U.S. Supreme Court and overwhelming public support."